The Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS) was established by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as an emergency alert message system that allows wireless service providers to send emergency alerts originating with emergency service agencies to their subscribers. Such alerts are typically in the form of text messages. The CMAS network allows emergency service agencies, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to send the alerts over a secure interface to wireless providers. The wireless providers can then distribute the alerts to their customers.
Current standards allow a government agency to deliver limited emergency message types to end user devices. All messages sent must be the same message regardless of the intended recipients. Such messages are only permitted to be one-way and are not interactive in that a recipient cannot respond to a message or otherwise interact with the message or the agency with whom the message originated. Current emergency alert message systems only allows government emergency service agencies to originate emergency messages. Currently only mobile devices can receive the emergency messages. There is a need in the art to address these and other limitations of the current emergency alert message system.